On September 10, 2025, a family was destroyed when Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University. Two very small children lost their dad. A wife lost her husband. That same day, three students were rushed to the hospital in critical condition following another school shooting, this time at Evergreen High School in Denver, Colorado. One them was the shooter, who died of a self-inflicted injury.
The responses to Kirk’s death have been as mixed—and disturbing—as you might expect. Many among both his ideological allies and opponents offered heartfelt condolences and called for Americans to turn down the temperature on political rhetoric. Some on the far right have called Kirk’s death an act of martyrdom and an act of war. One MAGA-influenced pastor in the Nashville area raged and called for the return of public executions. Some on the far left have gloated over the death of a man they view as morally repugnant.
The students and faculty of Evergreen High School and their families were largely lost in the noise.
Can We Find Our Way Back?
I fear for us as a society. Evil is so common that we’ve become numb to its horror. We have become so polarized that we risk losing our ability to empathize; perhaps even very humanity. We’ve been conditioned by algorithms, partisan rhetoric, and echo chambers of curated content to see those with whom we might disagree as enemies.
We don’t know how to mourn with those who mourn. To acknowledge tragedy without filtering it through a partisan framework. To consider how we have lost our way—and if it’s possible to find our way back again.
I don’t write as one with all the answers, but as one who feels all the same pressures you do. Who feels the pressure to take sides when there are no sides to be taken; who fights every day to not feel numb.
But I think about those individuals families that went to sleep last night, their lives shattered by loss and pain. Small children who won’t hear their father say, “I love you’ again. A wife who has lost her husband. Parents grappling with unimaginable loss. Witnesses of these horrors unsure how to move forward. And I can’t feel numb. But I can pray.
Lord, have mercy.
Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash
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